Sickie

Having tried illness and decided that it wasn't all that bad, F went for another bout this week.

Nothing as serious, just a snotty nose coupled with a brief but high fever. And lots of enfeebled wails. And the same insistence on lying on top of mummy on the sofa, eating only the best raspberries and orange juice. I'm not exactly sure when she started feeling better. I have the impression it was some time before she started asking for V's china puffs* and she'd been getting away with a spot of light acting for a bit.

Summer is here. Early, as part of the balancing act that is still inflicting late snow on parts of the US. Our balcony is an excellent sun trap of which F is very fond. She stands in front of the chairs out there yelling 'uh uh uh' until I pick her up as indicated and sit next to her, explaining the windows and the thermometer over and over.

Adult chairs are a big draw at the moment. Adult most things are, of course, which is why I eat more of the food I prepare for F than the stuff I make for me. It's all the same, to be fair, her portions are just minced finer. But she'd still rather eat forkfulls of daddy's quiche lorraine with daddy's fork than touch any of the identical stuff in front of her. Eating it while sitting next to daddy on a grown-up chair was an added requirement the other day.

Actually, I forgot to mention the 'eating with forks' thing. It's about a month now since she suddenly started eating perfectly with a spoon as though she'd always done it. For about four months, she'd been eating whilst holding one, occasionally using it to bless the mouthful she was about to take like some miniature podgy bishop, but very rarely trying to eat with it. Then one morning over porridge, some internal revelation struck her and pow! spoon all the way. Fork followed soon after, although that's still mostly in crosier mode right now.

She also walks. Three or four times in the last few weeks, I'd come into a room to find her standing in the middle. She'd immediately sit down and deny all knowledge, and she still has a preference for having a parent's hand to hold (two for outside). Whenever she started this surrepticious practice, it's certainly paid off. She toddles about independently more and more every day.

I must be tired at the moment (actually, I know damn well I am) - all these milestones would have prompted long and gushing blogs before. Now I'm so swamped in astounding newness, it almost gets a bit ho-hum. Her vocab in Swedish and English is a couple of hundred words, although only in comprehension, she isn't talking very much yet. As with walking and spoon use, though, I suspect she'll start very fast once she finds a use for it. Right now, she can get her demands across perfectly well through the international language of pointing and stropping.

God help us when she can explain what the yelling means in more detail, I suspect. Parenthood is quite relentless, I do feel fairly worn out at the moment. The endless tide of housework, the insistence of routines - although it's good to always have something to do, it's tiring.

As a kid myself, I never understood why parents were so boring when they got together. Sitting down and talking? Given that they could go out and do whatever they wanted whenever they liked (it seemed to me), I didn't understand why they wouldn't be riding bikes round and round the block forever. Or why they'd want to drink coffee. Or sleep in. Or watch the news instead of cartoons.

Funny how times change.


*chocolate covered rice sweets, for those in the UK. The packaging has coolie hats on it, which is unusually un-PC for Sweden. It's one close step away from calling your confection a 'chinky gay'.